If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.

Good deeds shun the light as anxiously as evil deeds: the latter fear that disclosure will bring on pain (as punishment), while the former fear that disclosure will take away pleasure (that pure pleasure, that pleasure per se, which immediately ceases once the vanity's satisfaction is added).

We come to recognize that playfulness, as a philosophical stance, can be very serious indeed; and moreover, that it possesses an unfailing capacity to arouse ridicule and hostility in those among us who crave certainty, reverence, and restraint.

The great man fights the elements in his time that hinder his own greatness, in other words his own freedom and sincerity.

The danger of our culture.- We belong to a period of which the culture is in danger of being destroyed by the appliances of culture.

Mothers easily become jealous of their sons' friends when they are particularly successful. As a rule a mother loves herself in her son more than she does the son himself.

I have found strength where one does not look for it: in simple, mild, and pleasant people, without the least desire to rule -- and, conversely, the desire to rule has often appeared to me a sign of inward weakness: they fear their own slave soul and shroud it in a royal cloak (in the end, they still become the slaves of their followers, their fame, etc.)